


Before It's Too Late.

by CescaLR



Series: The Time After Everything (Season 4 AU) [7]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-07 00:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8775598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CescaLR/pseuds/CescaLR
Summary: Scott sees him, sees him in the dark shadows of the night - And Stiles bolts. Again.(Malia, of course, follows.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'll never leave this series behind, I swear.   
> (Just as these guys will never in this series. haha oops)

Malia can't scent him, he knows.

He can't smell her either, but then his sense of smell is  ~~not~~ that of a puny, useless human so he ignores it in favour of = 

_Emotions._

He's not - not -  _powered, fuel-ed_ up enough to sense all emotions, but he can focus, and he can tell where she is (around about) from feeling for hers, and that - that's enough.

And he runs. He knows she's tracking him via sound, via the mess he's making of the forest but Stiles? 

He doesn't much care, to be honest. 

When he breaks through into the next clearing he does not expect to be at the entrance to the Nemeton root cellar. 

It's fitting. He hates that about it. Even so, Stiles lowers himself into the precarious basement, and is surprised to see that his bat - his wonderful, aluminium bat - is still there, still as good as (slightly dented) new as it was when he'd put it there. The roof seems to be holding up nicely, he thinks, and ventures down into the depths.

The first thing he focuses on (aside from his bat, which he will be retrieving later, somehow) is the roots of the Nemeton.

Obviously.

Also, there's a jar there. It's cracked, and it looks old. It must have shattered during the storm Ms. Blake caused. (It's weird to think of her as that, but Stiles never learned her actual name - and she was a teacher, so.)

He sighs, and leans back into the roots. It's weirdly comforting.

_Nice evil tree stump_ he thinks, warily, as he pats the roots.  _Try not to kill me please._

Stiles is weirded out by this whole situation. He violently disapproves, but fuck it; what else is he gonna do now, go home? 

Definitely not. So he sits. In the roots of the evil tree. Which are surprisingly comfy.

Stiles decides to focus on other things, and picks up the jar.

A part of him recognises it. 

He knows now, of course, that thousands of years of lives of memories are all stored in his head somewhere - but for the life of him, he'll never be able to sort that shit out, will he? Stiles is pretty certain human brains can't handle that much information, since they seem to be built pretty shoddily, considering.

Well. At least his, anyway. FTD; not pleasant. But again, adds points as to why he won't be able to remember jack shit about the earlier lives.

But this jar? This, now this is relatively recent. 

He frowns.

Fifty years. The - He - They -  _It_ spent fifty of it's one thousand years in this jar. Jennifer Blake - she set it free accidentally in her madness, and it flew away, and found -  
Stiles blinked. He'd not been possessed during the ice bath, but rather because he was the closest unconscious being that was at the very least human that it could find.

And wasn't a werewolf. Obviously. 

Stiles turned the jar over in his hands. The crack was big enough - more of a hole, really - for a fly to leave through.

Stiles glares at the breakable jar. Seriously, Noshiko?

He throws the offending object across the room and it  _shatters,_ and the content he can sense isn't his relief.

He freezes.

The tree is thinking again. Stiles despises this whole incident, violently and overtly so. 

It laughs; or something equivalent to such and Stiles never though a tree could live but hell, this is his life now, living trees is nothing.

Well. It is when it's this tree, the fucker, Stiles amends.

The roots shift slightly, and he feels himself sinking deeper.

_Sleep, stiles._ It croons, and he's still utterly tense.  _Nope, fucker. I'm not some sacrifice._

_Oh, but you were..._ It whispers, tendrils of thought making his brain feel heavy. 

_And such a powerful one, as well... fitting more than one category is an accomplishment, Stiles._

Stiles pauses. 

Again, it laughs.  _What is a Stiles?_ It muses.  _It is a you, it seems. our little banshee girl is looking for you, young one. So is the Alpha, and the Runt... though I suppose it is his Second, now - not you. Since, after all, you are not a wolf._

If a tree could smile, you bet your ass this one would be grinning. Stiles is sure of it. 

_Are you not?_

A flash of memory. Scott biting into the arm of his doppelganger, the pain he'd felt without really taking note, him fainting...

Stiles blinks.

The roots are further into the earth, now, he knows.

For some reason, he doesn't much care. But yet -

_And the coyote-girl. She lived with us for years, young one. One of the forest, the were-girl could blend as any animal. No-one would suspect her humanity - and yet, you insisted. Why is that?_

_We wonder if you were trying to make up for crimes you didn't ever truly want to commit, but your body did so anyway. It seems likely; she is of your spirit, broken and lost as you are._

_Were-girl,_ Stiles wonders. 

_Were-girl; were-coyote. She's half and half, more one than the other but always a different one and never at a different time._

Stiles tries to process that, but he's too tired.

_Screw you._ He thinks instead, as the roots drag him deeper. He's well and truly stuck now, he knows, but he feels too - far, far too... calm.

Yeah. Calm.

Stiles has Anxiety. ADHD. Possible PTSD, definite paranoia. 

Stiles never feels  _calm._ It's a foreign emotion, to him.

_Malia,_ he thinks, instead of sleeping. That seems like a bad idea. 

_Yes. The girl in coyote skin; More Bad Than Good, the banshee girl said - and wouldn't you know it, the coyote in girl skin thought so too. But she was guilty, and scared, and the chemo signals you gave off felt so much like hers she couldn't handle it._

_Also she wanted to be a coyote, and fully believed you deserved to be punched. It is what it is._

Stiles is having a hard time thinking of this voice as a tree, to be honest. He wonders where Malia is now, at any rate.

_Sleep, Stiles,_ the Nemeton soothes.  _Our little sacrifice... yes. Sleep... we have power we need to give, for the ritual was finished and the target for it was killed before we could transfer what She asked for..._

_You will get a different present, yes. The girl will as well... smaller though it may be._

* * *

 

Malia runs. She listens, and she follows, and she  _runs._

Stiles can sense her emotions, and he's always just that little bit too far for her to catch anything more than a glimpse, but it's enough to follow and it's not like he's being stealthy.

She finally follows him into a clearing. Falling into a hole is not what she expected to do, and of course  _ow,_ but the time for such things is not now,  _get yourself together Malia Stiles is **running**_ **-**

And she also has no clue where she is or how to get out, because the hole has actually got a grate in it, natural and made of wood.

Great. Perfect, even.

She looks around. The small space she's in has a low roof - it's being held up by an... aluminium baseball bat, of all things. There are roots on one side of the room, and as they're the only even slightly interesting thing in this place she goes over to them despite her better judgement. 

It may be curiosity, but she's not a cat. So she should be fine.

There's another hole. She's knocked down into it by some unseen force.

She doesn't hit the bottom so much as float down gently, and she realises this only happens most likely because there's also another person here.

It's Stiles, obviously, because he's the one out of the two of them to be here first, and she'd know him anywhere, so that's fine.

Also his scent is back. Which is good. 

Tracking scentless people is  _hard._ At least he's not lacking the ability to make sound. 

That would be bad.

Malia sighs, the puff of air blowing strands of hair away from her face.

Lying on her front was only comfortable as a coyote, she decides, and then manoeuvres them into a more comfortable position.

She sighs, more content, and grabs onto his hands with each of her own.

Much better.

Since she has nothing else to do, and her pain is gone (for now) Malia decides sleep is probably the best course of action.

And so she does. Sleep, that is.

* * *

Stiles isn't really sure of what's gone on, for the last - good while, actually. 

He just knows he's in some - dark place with Malia, and there's a voice whispering in his head that he's just plain ignor-

Oh. Wait. No, now he remembers.

_Fucking tree._

The mirth he feels from the  _fucking tree_ is real, that's for sure, and Stiles is pretty certain they're fucked.

He grumbles to himself, because  _fucking evil tree stumps, dude_ and wakes Malia in the process.

They look at each other, sigh, and try to sit up.

They then realise they're in a rather confining cocoon of roots, and damn. That's not good.

Stiles sighs, and glares at nowhere in particular. everything around them is what he's glaring at anyway.

Malia chuckles, slightly. They meet eyes, and Stiles can't help the amused downward pull of his mouth.

"Goddamn evil tree stumps." He murmurs at her, and her beautiful eyes light up, the warm frothy mirth spilling forth. He grins, easily and so does she.

With another sigh, he looks around. This is not the most comfortable of - well, he's lying, it's actually really comfy, but still. They need to - 

And oh, would you look at that, the cocoon is a lift, that's actually really nice of the evil tree. Bravo, or Brava, or whatever. 

_We aren't evil, Stiles._ It tries to convince him.  _We were murdered, you know, and we're seeking revenge. It is not a question of good or evil, rather justice or injustice._

_And you forget, but it is our nature. We cannot help being such._

The two of them are back in the cellar.

_We hope you visit us again, dear Sacrifice._ It murmurs into his brain, the tendrils taking root more firmly than before.

_And we hope you and your coyote like the gifts we gave you._

Before he can ask, the two of them are catapulted out of the cocoon, and land in a what should be painful but isn't actually tumble of limbs at the other end of the room. Stiles sighs, and grabs the baseball bat. It moves with ease, and the roof does not fall even slightly. 

Malia raises an eyebrow. "It's mine. I'll tell you the story later." He says, and she nods.

Before they go, she grabs onto his hand.

The veins pass between them, black as always and vile as ever - yet somehow Stiles doesn't feel like shit about using it.

And strangely, Malia seemed to be able to feel something, or something, because she frowned in surprised.

Malia shakes herself. Now is not the time. 

"We'll have to tell them all now." She says, because this - it's all so much bigger than they thought it was.

Stiles' face is cast in shadow, and even with her eyes she cannot read his expression.

"Yeah." He says, finally. It was with the tone he'd used when he'd been certain she wouldn't like him after he explained what was going on back in Echo - Eichen House. 

(Only the inmates use Echo. It's - she isn't one. Anymore.)

Stiles squeezes her hand and lets go. She feels... lighter, somehow, than she has for a long while. 

Malia sighs. She shrugs, and deems it unimportant right at that moment.

Because their friends were waiting, she knew they were.

And it was time they all got some answers.

 

 


End file.
